Of Love and Telemarketers
by Save the Mooses
Summary: Zim has gotten it together well enough to take over Earth. A strange turn of events changes Zita for the better as she learns not all is as it seems, and telemarketing really is a rather boring job. It's a DibxZita, OTP.
1. Telemarkia

DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to the illustrious Jhonen Vasquez, and I suppose also Nickelodeon and Viacom, with the exception of Larry Hotter, who belongs to Nick Oleson and Drew Lagatutta. Don't sue me, I won't sue you. And now:  
  
Chapter 1-Telemarkia  
  
It was seven o'clock in the morning and Zita was walking down the street to Skool. Actually, she wasn't really walking, rather slinking in and out of the shadows, and she wasn't really going to Skool, merely the place where Skool had used to be, on a search for something lost. Certainly Zita would never have the nerve, ever again, to strut down this street as she had just last month, showing off a cute new outfit or hot shoes, making even that dork Melvin drool, her head held high. Surely she would never enter Skool, to listen to her teacher's doomy visions, bored out of her mind in her seat behind Zim's.  
  
Zim.  
  
A flash of hot anger came over her at the thought of that slime Zim. Zim was the reason she was slinking down a dark alleyway like a common criminal, like Melvin, for God's sake, when he escaped from Torque Smackey or some other bully. Zim was the reason she would never go to Skool again, the reason Skool wasn't even around anymore. And Zim was the reason most of her friends, classmates, and family had been captured and enslaved, taken to labor in one of the many skyscrapers that now covered Earth, now known as Telemarkia, one of Irk's more annoying conquests. Zita had been fortunate enough to escape capture on the first rounding-up by hiding in the last place anyone sane would ever go-the library. After that, it had been easy to avoid capture, skulking down the dreary alleyways of her old hometown and what was now Telemarkia's capital, the place where THE ONE, the Almighty Shortest, Zim himself, made his residence, by night, and sleeping in the library, which for some reason had been left standing, by day. She had no desire to work in one of those oddly sinister eggshell colored buildings, making intergalactic phone calls all day, though the old Zita had quite enjoyed chatting on the phone all night with her friends.  
  
Now, as Zita slunk down the alley back to the library, a bit later than she normally did, she hoped she would not be caught. She highly doubted anything would come of being out in the day, however: to her, the Irkens seemed oddly stupid for a race that had conquered quite a few planets. She wondered just how Zim had gotten it together enough to conquer the planet; perhaps he had enlisted the help of the ugly little alien Skoodge, whom she had seen Zim with the night before the Armada came: he had introduced him as "my, erm...cousin...from, uh, Czechoslovakia." Indeed, Skoodge seemed dense as well, as did the aliens who had come on the conquering Armada the day after. The two tallest of them sat around, whined, ate junk food of a peculiar sort, screamed in agony over rain showers, and reluctantly credited Zim with conquering the planet; it appeared Zim had one day gotten a call from a telemarketer and decided Earth could be the Irken's telemarketing site: apparently just the idea was enough to make the Armada come to help conquer (the opportunity to annoy the entire universe was too good to pass up, to the Tallests). Within a matter of months, they had completely razed the entire surface of Earth and erected a number of corporate eggshell colored skyscrapers, all with the Irken symbol on them. By the looks of them, Zita would have bet her spleen that they had coarse gray carpet inside.  
  
As Zita neared the library doors, she saw something that made her heart nearly stop: what she recognized as one of the SIR units that had been roaming Telemarkia trying to pick up more phone slaves was standing right in front of the library. She debated turning and making a run for it before it spotted her, then realized it was licking a cardboard sandwich and watching a stationary poster of Larry Hotter in the library window with as great an interest as if it had been The Scary Monkey Show. This confused her so much she stopped to watch the little robot, realizing it was aqua in contrast to most SIR units' red color. Maybe it wasn't harmful after all, Zita thought to herself, and at any rate it seemed so engrossed in Larry Hotter that she could most likely sneak past it. She began to tiptoe past toward the door when the SIR turned around. It stared at her for a second, then screamed, "KITTY??!! WHERE!!!??" and catapulted itself at her head. Upon striking the side of her head, it turned red and yelled "INTRUDER!" It took a running start, flew at her, and as it struck her head again, harder this time, Zita fell to the ground. She had never been one to black out, so as she lay there, crazy SIR on top of her, all went chartreuse.  
  
A/N: Oh my goodness it's an author's note, all groan collectively. This is the first chapter in my "baby", my fic where I singlehandedly float the Dib/Zita ship. That's right, this will eventually be Dib/Zita. Now review...review for tuna. Flames will be used to conquer this cesspool you filthy worm babies call Earth. 


	2. The Almighty Shortest

DISCLAMER: I don't own Invader Zim, nor will I ever. That privilege belongs to Jhonen Vasquez, Nickelodeon, and Viacom. I do, however, own the first season on DVD and a shirt with GIR on it. And a can of tuna.  
  
Chapter 2-The Almighty Shortest  
  
As Zita floated slowly back to consciousness, the first thing she noticed was she appeared to be inside. The second thing was two fuzzy blue orbs floating above her face and a wetness about her ears. After a moment of focusing, she realized that this was because her captor, the crazy SIR unit, was sitting on her chest, nose to nose with her, licking its fingers and sticking them in her ears repeatedly, and laughing maniacally as it did so.  
  
"ARRGH!!" she screamed, sitting bolt upright. The SIR flew across the room and hit the opposite wall, sliding to the floor. Its eye sockets turned a blank gray color, then just as quickly as it had shorted out, it leapt to its feet, now with red eyes. "Orders to alert master when captive awakens," it said in a flat voice, saluting an imaginary superior. Zita stared. Its eyes turned blue again as it yelled "TAQUITOS!?!?! TAQUITOS!?!?! WHERE?????!!!" and ran screaming from the room, hands in the air.  
  
Zita blinked, mouth open, at this display of dual personality, as she took inventory. She had a splitting headache from her collision with the SIR, and also from sitting up so fast; other than that, she seemed to be fine. She was sitting in a small room, painted the same eggshell white as the Irken buildings; she had reason to suspect she was now inside of one. She could hear the ringing of telephones and soft murmured voices through the door the SIR had left wide open and unguarded. Scratchy gray carpet tickled her lower legs. "Aha," Zita thought. "So I was right! What have I gotten myself into now, though?" She was unprepared for this. Nothing like this ever happened to her, for who, at skool, would dare to hold Zita captive without suffering immediate social suicide? She rubbed her head, irked at her situation, and was considering bolting through the door when the SIR returned, still aqua colored, dragging an exasperated-looking alien by the hand. Zita recognized him immediately.  
  
Zim.  
  
The sight of him made her so angry she forgot where she was and what was happening to her. She leapt to her feet, forgetting her headache. THIS was her chance, to scream at Zim, to really let him have it, to vent her frustration she had held for months. She screamed, "ZIM WHATEVER-YOUR-LAST- NAME-IS!!! HOW DARE YOU??? HOW DARE YOU TAKE DOWN THE PLANET TWO WEEKS BEFORE CHEERLEADING TRYOUTS!!??"  
  
Zim laughed. Maniacally. "Cheerleading?" he sneered. "Zim has no time for such leading of cheers. For I am THE ALMIGHTY SHORTEST of Telemarkia, the greatest conquest of Irk!!"  
  
Zita, her venting now done, snorted and looked at Zim skeptically. "The greatest conquest of Irk? How about the most irksome conquest of Irk?"  
  
"Foolish wormbaby!" screamed Zim, a vein in his temple popping unattractively. "How dare you belittle the conquests of ZIM? I shall give you PAIN...pain unimaginable up until the point where you imagine it, because you will be going through it..." Zim dropped his harangue and began mumbling, talking himself in circles before he finally fell silent, trying to figure out what he had just said.  
  
Zita waited.  
  
Zim pointed his left hand to his right, mumbling, then his right hand to his left. He screwed up his face in thought.  
  
Zita checked her watch.  
  
Zim crossed both legs, then wrapped his left arm completely around his body. Zita could hear him muttering, "But if she has experienced the pain, she needn't imagine it..."  
  
Told you those Irkens were stupid.  
  
"Anymoose," Zim said coolly, untying himself from his knot, "ZIM does not see it fit to give you such pain."  
  
Zita sighed in relief. Pain so bad that Zim couldn't figure it out did not seem the best fate.  
  
"I shall only lock you in a cell and force you to work telemarketing for the rest of eternity," said Zim lightly.  
  
Zita only just restrained herself from looking like a cheesy movie and screaming "NOO!" She couldn't believe it. Zim was ruining her life, and she told him so. "You're RUINING my LIFE, " she whined like a spoiled child.  
  
"YAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!! WE ALL GONNA DO THE MACARENA!" screamed the crazy SIR, throwing his hands into the air.  
  
"GIR!" said Zim. "Take our newest 'employee' down to the living quarters. You'll start tomorrow," he informed Zita, "and work for the rest of your life!! Mwahahaha!!" Zim laughed a maniacal laugh, then coughed uncontrollably halfway through. Darn those lame humor gags.  
  
"COME ON!" screamed GIR, grabbing Zita by the hand. "We gonna go visit the leprechauns!"  
  
As he dragged Zita from the room, she resigned herself to her new, so- called life.  
  
A/N: "Oh my goodness," you all groan, "this author talks far too much." I know this is a Dib/Zita, and there has not, of yet, been a mention of Dib. Next chapter, I promise. This may be a Dib/Zita, but it is also much more. It's my baby, my greatest work, and I am rather fond of it and wish it to have a plot.  
  
That said, next chapter should be out in a few days or so. It's the scene that inspired this entire fic, and the ship Dib/Zita. 


	3. Strange Dormfellows

DISCLAIMER: It's Jhonen Vasquez's, though he's too emo to claim it, and Nickelodeon and Viacom's, though they are too embarrassed to admit it's theirs. So I guess, if you want it, you can have it, because poor Zim has a home nowhere but at Hot Topic and in the hearts of the fangirls. But he will live on. Ah…I digress…

Chapter 3- Strange Dormfellows

The little SIR dragged Zita down the hall by one hand, screaming nonsensicalities nonstop. In another time, at another place, it would have annoyed Zita to no end, but now, despite the rather surreal conversation she had just carried on with Zim, she was feeling a little scared. As they traversed straight corporate halls, the little robot and Zita, she took in many an interesting and strange sight. The entire building reminded her of the business end of Axion Labs, where Dib's father had made groundbreaking discoveries as well as filmed a children's series, but with undeniable alien influences. She'd been to Axion on a field trip once, thought it was lame, but what she wouldn't give to be learning about the fifteen uses of bran cereal as applied to nuclear physics now.

Soft voices, telephones ringing, and the occasional rage-filled outburst of a frustrated phoneslave washed over her from many an open door, through which she could see nothing but cubicle farms, old coffee mugs stained with use and dead potted plants. Fluorescent lights gave a harsh glare to the white hall, and she sighed, knowing the havoc it wreaked on her complexion. She had prided herself on keeping a tan even in this apocalyptic dystopia; that was all shot to hell now, as she doubted she'd ever see light of day again.

She emerged from her musings long enough to realize they were boarding an elevator. GIR pressed his hand onto a pressure pad near the door and next thing she knew her stomach was dropping as the elevator plummeted down at breakneck speed. The little robot squealed in delight even as the forces hurled him to the ceiling. A few very horrific moments later, she and the robot emerged on what appeared to be the ground floor.

"God, GIR, I know you're a robot, but BE CAREFUL. That messed up my hair, and I doubt I'm going to get a blowout here for a long time," Zita complained, more out of habit than anything.

"CHEESEBURGERS!" replied GIR, brushing Zita's hair away from her face then mussing it into a fluffy halo.

She paused to pull a compact from her purse, patting at her hair before looking around in abject horror. Zim had told GIR to take her to her living quarters. What he hadn't said was that these living quarters barely compared even to the local motel in comfort. She was standing in a dimly-lit hall, carpeted with the same gray carpet as upstairs. The walls down here, in an attempt to be decorative, she supposed, were covered in horridly lurid wallpaper. Closed doors stood at regular intervals, and at the end of the hall she could make out a sort of living area. It was to this living area that GIR pulled her.

Ugly upholstered chairs dominated the area. There was also the ubiquitous coffee pot (it would seem these workers could not live without caffeine) and a small TV tuned to an alien game show that mostly consisted of answering questions, then dropping various carnivorous animals on the contestants' heads. What shocked Zita most, though, were the people sitting in the chairs.

Torque Smackey. At one time she'd harbored a major, squealy schoolgirl crush on him, but she hadn't seen him in at least two years, ever since The Beginning. Still, she was momentarily horrified at herself for letting him see her like this.

Gretchen. Zita had to dig for her name, but there it was. She'd been a little, insignificant thing in skool; so pitiful that even Dib, who had been desperate for human contact, had paid very little attention to her.

A man with a goatee and earring. Good God, thought Zita, is that our guidance counselor? Zita wasn't familiar with him, having been remarkably well adjusted in skool. And, after all, he had disappeared in his first year on the job. No one knew what had happened to him. Zita had heard some stories, mostly from Dib (so mostly crazy), but she knew it was strange to see him here.

Finally, there was another man, older than the first, in a trench coat. He was casting suspicious glances around the room and mumbling to himself. He looked vaguely familiar, but Zita could not identify him.

As she walked into the room, no one even glanced up. They continued to watch the Irken game show with a glazed single-mindedness that disturbed her more than a little. Of old, when she'd walked into a room, everyone had wanted to talk to her. Seeing Torque like this threw her off especially; he'd used to be vital and energetic, always ready to lift something.

They snapped out of it when the GIR unit ran to the TV. "SCARY MONKEY SHOW!" he screamed, and changed the channel. Odd that that stupid monkey was the only scrap of Earth culture left.

GIR sat on the floor in front of the TV, his tongue out and feet wiggling as he stared at the monkey, all duties forgotten. With the robot thus fixated, Zita found the courage to speak.

"Torque! Gretchen! How long have you been here? What's been going on?" Zita was full of questions, and she flung them at the two most familiar people in the room with almost no preface.

"Two years," sighed Torque. "Two long years, Zita. The first place Zim destroyed was Skool. I think he was looking for Dib, but he didn't discriminate…he took us all."

"We didn't know what happened to you," added Gretchen. "He took all of us, the whole class. We're the only ones left out of them as far as we know; the rest have all been shipped to Foodcourtia. Something about not enough employees for something called the Foodening. Zim said we were lucky to remain here; I don't know if I believe him. But at least we have regular hours. Zim never did find Dib, or Ms. Bitters."

The man in the trench coat spoke up. "Ha! Dib. What I wouldn't give now to have listened to him."

"Who are you?" Zita asked, more than a little puzzled.

"My name's Bill. Bill Mulder," the man answered. "I am…er, I was a paranormal investigator. Came to your class for career day once. So many bright, promising students, and I got the one crackpot child who believed in aliens. Can you believe it! With Count Cocofang on the loose, this kid was raving about Irkens. And, like a fool, I didn't listen. In hindsight, he had the best instincts I've ever come across."

"Aliens," reflected the guidance counselor. It suddenly occurred to Zita that his name was Mr. Dwicky, and once she remembered it she had to stifle a giggle at it. "That's what got me into this whole thing in the first place."

"Aw, don't start AGAIN," Torque complained. "I think you're the one who needs counseling."

"No, I want to hear," Zita said.

"Well, when I went on sabbatical that year, I wasn't really on sabbatical," began Dwicky.

"Yeah, we figured that," Torque interrupted. "Dib said you'd left to live in an alien utopia. The rest of us reckoned you'd started a new job as a high-class pimp."

Dwicky gave Torque an odd look. "Well, Dib was much closer to the truth. Actually, he was spot on. Well, there was that one time…never mind. The point is, after that night with Dib in the woods-"

Torque snorted. Dwicky ignored him with the seasoned martyr look often worn by anyone familiar with working around middle school children.

"After that, the Plookesians took me in as a native. We traveled from planet to planet for a year. But they were far too idealistic…in the end, they were conquered by the Irkens as well, with the same super weapons they had given Zim, actually. When the Irkens found me aboard the Plookesian ship, they sent me here. I daresay Zim remembered me, if his rage at seeing me was any indication at all."

"Wow," Zita said. "That's crazy."

"Yeah," Dwicky sighed. "We all laugh now to think we didn't believe in aliens. But when I think what I put Dib through in the name of psychoanalysis… I didn't realize for days that I still had his only documented proof of aliens. I know it's mentally unhealthy, but I can't help but think this whole invasion could have been prevented if not for me."

"Don't, Dwicky," barked Bill. "We all feel guilty, don't make it worse. God, what I wouldn't do to see that kid again."

"Yeah," chimed in Torque. "He approached me about aliens once; I laughed at him."

"Me too," echoed Gretchen regretfully. "The worst part is I knew what it felt like to have someone laugh at you. It happened to me all the time. I always thought, even for his craziness, he was pretty cute, though."

Torque mock-gagged. Gretchen glared.

"I sent him to the crazy house, for God's sake," Zita said. A new emotion had welled up inside her. She felt bad. She, Zita, felt bad for the way she'd treated anther human being.

"Well, there's no sense in this. Zim's the common enemy now," opined Bill. "As small as a skool child and twice as deadly…and that's saying something. At any rate, we'd better get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be a long day. I heard the dispatcher say we're to be selling hats to the residents of Assheadia tomorrow."

"Oh, Gods," groaned Torque.

As the Crazy Monkey Show wound to a scintillating finish (monkey scratching butt, big surprise), the little GIR unit remembered its duties. Snapping to red-eyed attention, he led Zita down the hall to one of the shut doors.

"This is your room," he said metallically. "I'M GONNA PLAY WITH THE FISH!"

He ran down the hall toward the elevator flashing aqua and screaming the whole time, leaving Zita to undress and lay down on the one very hard cot. She sighed as she awaited what was to be the first grim morning of many.


	4. The Unknowable Room

DISCLAIMER: It's not mine. I swear.

Chapter 4- The Unknowable Room

It's truly remarkable how quickly a human can adjust to new conditions. A week went by, then two, then three, and by the end of the month Zita just didn't care anymore. She had grown used to the substandard cafeteria food, the mundane work, the hard beds, even her crazy housemates. Days were segmented into before work, after work and bed. Time no longer existed as it had in the outside world. There were no windows in the building, and her biological clock, after the first few days, became attuned not to the rising and setting of the sun but to the bells that rung, telling them when to wake up, when to eat, when to sleep and work and shower and do everything but breathe. For all Zita knew, she could be sleeping all day and working all night. But it didn't matter.

Nothing mattered but the sales. As a rule, every employee of Telemarkia, Inc. had a quota to make, selling stupid stuff to even stupider clients. Zita's powers of persuasion, always strong, became even stronger as the weeks dragged on. She'd sold socks to the finned Mon Calamari, life insurance to the immortal Zhangians, and even massive amounts of indigestible Irken snacks to almost every race in the sphere encompassed by Telemarkia's market.

Today, Zita was selling sets of encyclopedias. She was not sure exactly what she had done to deserve that assignment. Encyclopedias were nearly impossible to sell. There was not a single alien race that would buy them, not that she could blame them. But still, there was a quota to make. She sighed and took a sip from her coffee cup, settling back into her cubicle (which, she reflected, was oddly comfortable) and picked up the phone yet again.

The end of the day had Zita worried. She was three items below quota for the week, thanks to the encyclopedia assignment. She had no idea what happened to employees who did not make quota, but knowing Zim (president of Telemarkia, Inc.) it was nothing good. Still, she ate dinner and spent the night watching Irken TV (Who Wants to be Ruler of the Universe?) with her housemates, trying not to seem bothered.

Well. She quickly learned it was not a good idea to repress one's emotions around a former guidance counselor.

Three hours later, Zita had confessed to what was bothering her; Torque was in tears; Gretchen was lying flat on her back on the couch, babbling and "having a breakthrough"; Bill had entered into a long monologue about his issues with his mother; and Dwicky, in his element, was sitting in a chair, steno pad on knee, nodding and occasionally saying, "Hmm. And how does that make you feel?" when the chaos gave signs of dying down.

And it was just as Torque was relaying a dream involving jell-o, mayonnaise, and Peewee Herman in a way you would never like to see them put together when Zim himself came storming into the lounge.

"Hmm…and how does that make you feel?" Dwicky asked, licking the tip of his pencil and making a note.

"Do not condescend to the Almighty ZIM!! It makes me feel…DOOMY!" Zim screamed.

"Zim! Do not interrupt the grieving process! We were finally delving into the _root_ of Torque's problems," snapped Dwicky, irritable that Torque's monologue had been stemmed.

"Oh, in that case, continue," Zim said calmly, all ire immediately disappearing, sitting on the floor cross-legged with an interested look.

Zita, sure Zim was here for her, took the opportunity to sneak out.

She hurried blindly, not sure of her destination. Logically she realized that there was no escaping Zim even in the bowels of the Telemarkia building, but emotionally she just wanted to run until she couldn't any more. Twisting and turning down the many hallways, up stairs, down stairs, and more than once through a door merely pretending to be solid wall, she lost herself totally and inexorably in the huge building.

When she had finally calmed down enough to take stock of her surroundings, she realized she had no idea where she was. Not once in her many wanderings had she been in a hall remotely resembling this one. There was a queer weight in the air that seemed to suggest she was deep underground, and the floor, ceiling and walls all were gray concrete, adding to the almost institutional quality of the hallway. Worst of all, there were no windows, no doors…just plain concrete as far as she could see but for the end of the hallway. One door, the door she had come in through.

And another, one she had not at first noticed, one whose joints blended in with the wall so well she would not have noticed it at all had she not been sure there was some sort of stirring noise coming from behind it. Natural curiosity caused her to move toward it, to try to open it, but it seemed stuck tight. She was turning away in defeat when she heard an earsplitting scream behind her.

"I LOVEDED YOU TUNA GIRRRRRLLL!!!" It was GIR, rocketing down the hall at a frightening pace before glomping straight onto Zita's stomach. At first Zita was afraid at being found out, but she figured GIR was not much of a threat in his present state. She patted his head carefully, and then an idea came to her.

"GIR, can you open this door for me?" Zita asked.

"Master said…master said I no open the big headed door for anyone," answered GIR.

"GIR, I have chocolate…would you like chocolate? You can have some if you open this door," bribed Zita.

GIR seemed to think about it, scratching his little head. Finally he asked "Chocolate tacos?"

"Yes, GIR, I will get you chocolate anything you want if you open this door for me."

"Chocolate cupcakes?"

"Yes."

"Chocolate Poop?"

"Yes."

"Chocolate moosies?"

"YES GIR, chocolate ANYTHING!!" Zita was unsure of why she was even going through the trouble. Surely this was not the only mystery in Telemarkia, but she was mystified and curious by the contents of the room behind the door.

"Well, ooooookay," the little robot finally conceded, pressing his hand to the door, which slid open with an odd-sounding pinging noise.

Zita peeked inside, and recoiled at once. She could hardly believe her eyes at what exactly sat in the middle of the room, cross-legged and slightly smug.

A/N: I've been slow updating. I probably will remain slow. Anyone who checks this fic on a regular basis, I must say you are fantastico.

This is going to get really exciting really soon, so I hope you're up for the ride!


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